It's now 15 years since the Olympic neighbourhood of Pudding Mill got its name and 14 years since the Games skedaddled. And yet the number of homes in this new residential neighbourhood remains zero, indeed not a single foundation has yet been dug. Who says there's a housing shortage?
What Pudding Mill does have is a world-class tourist attraction in the form of the Abba Arena, supposedly temporary but still doing great business which makes it hard to remove. The Voyage show was initially only given planning permission for three years until March 2025, but that's since been incrementally extended and the latest sunset date is 2031. A key issue here is that the arena was built on the site of Pudding Mill's proposed neighbourhood centre, the intended site for shops, employment space and a community hub. It wouldn't really work to build flats in the empty space all around but with nowhere to buy milk because Dancing Queen is still belting out seven times a week.
The latest planning application, just published, solves the problem by shifting priorities to the neighbouring plot. Here the 80-bed Snoozebox Hotel has been offering constricted sleep since 2020 and pre-Abba drinks since 2022, but the fact it's all inside containers makes it very easy to remove. That's currently pencilled in for midwinter, indeed you can't book a stay after 31st January, with the intention that this wedge gets built on first. The revised application proposes to shift all the commercial space here instead, also to switch the tallest buildings so that this is the new landmark neighbourhood centre, not the Abba site. Previously this plot was pencilled in for two 9-storey buildings but it's now destined to hold a 12- and a 25-. Unsurprisingly making architectural changes on this scale has really slowed the process down.
Pudding Mill is due to be delivered in four stages, of which the Abba site is the final phase 4. This Snoozebox wedge is phase 2a, and the much larger plot across Marshgate Lane is phase 1. Nothing's begun on that site either, indeed planning permission only was only granted in May, although initial works may finally take place over the next few months. Then there's the Bridgewater Triangle site across the Greenway where planning permission was sought five years ago and bugger all has been built there too, the last couple of years having been spent tidying up the riverside and replacing a bridge.
It is a very nice new bridge, ideally configured for a car-free neighbourhood, but for goodness sake can't somebody just start building somewhere to live?
